Line #22 Literature/BitingTheSun


1	[[quoteright:294:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/BitingTheSun_1811.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:294:The Eden imagery is your guess as much as mine.]]
3	In TheSeventies, Creator/TanithLee wrote two short novels entitled ''Don't Bite The Sun'' and its {{sequel}} ''Drinking Sapphire Wine.'' These novels were later collected into a single volume as ''Biting the Sun''.
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5	The dome cities of Four BEE, Four BAA and Four BOO exist on a planet that is mostly desert. Within the cities, men and women can live forever in near-total hedonism, in the midst of luxurious surroundings with lots of bizarre, beautiful amusements. "Jang", the younger immortals, are expected to be wild, crazy, impulsive teenager/college student types, eventually graduating to become "Older People". Every morning sparkles with radiant sunshine and ends with a gorgeous sunset. Bodies are amazingly glamorous or cutely outre. Robots and androids do all the work.
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7	The protagonist is bored senseless.
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9	The story follows her ([[GenderBender sometimes him]]) as she tries to find something to give her life a bit more meaning. Eventually, of course, this gets her on the wrong side of the city's android authorities...
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11	There are two companion quests in VideoGame/TheOuterWorlds named after these books. They feature characters and settings common to the game, but here you are asked to help mechanic Parvati Holcomb connect romantically with Captain Junlei Tennyson.
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13	!!Tropes present in this book include:
14	%%* BabiesEverAfter:
15	* BodyBackupDrive: Everyone in the cities is promptly picked up and has their "life-spark" transferred into a new body of their choosing upon death. Some characters actually take advantage of this to get around the normal time limit for body changes.
16	* KindHeartedCatLover verging on CrazyCatLady: Thinta. She's a bit of a CloudCuckooLander as well. (Her name is an anagram of the author's; we're expected to draw our own conclusions.)
17	* CrystalSpiresAndTogas: Lots and lots and lots of crystal spires. Togas are never explicitly mentioned, but in this society anything is possible.
18	* DeathIsCheap: Due to the "life-spark" being rescued and placed in a new body upon death, death is ''never'' permanent. Even when someone decides they're done with life for real, their personality is simply wiped and placed in a new body.
19	%%* DesperatelyLookingForAPurposeInLife
20	%%* DesignerBabies
21	* DomedHometown: There are actually four of these cities. Lee had planned to write a third book about Four BII, the city she never described, but her publisher didn't want it.
22	--> I had wished... to write a third book in which I would try to set out an alternative life-style, adventurous and stretching to mind and heart, but still, and importantly, free of the retributions of unprotected life. I did and do think a world would be feasible which gives pleasure and safety alongside excitement and development.
23	%%** The three Fours Cities.
24	* DrivenToSuicide: [[spoiler:Danor,]] though see above.
25	* EveryoneIsBi: All the relationships we see until the end of part 2 are opposite-sex, but not necessarily opposite-gender (e.g. the protagonist and Danor.) The one same-sex couple we do see is implied to be more of an IfItsYouItsOkay situation (one of the participants is male-identifying but stuck in a female body.) Basically, all the sex changes make it a little complicated.
26	* FillItWithFlowers and HopeSpringsEternal: In the first book, the narrator witnessed the incredible blooming of the desert after the annual rains; an ineffable, transcendant experience [[spoiler: that ended with the accidental death of her pet, so that the memory of it was extremely painful]]. In the second book, now exiled to that same desert, a bizarre accident leads to her determination to [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert_greening cultivate a huge garden in the midst of the blazing waste]]. It's a near-sacred task for her, bringing a lot of other things to life besides plants. The story is how she does it.
27	* FoodFight: In ''Drinking Sapphire Wine'', during a lunch break in the narrator's murder trial (attended by hundreds of curious Jang) the narrator's friend Mirri is furious with Zirk (the newly-resurrected murder victim) for having the audacity to make a pass at the narrator after having just been the chief witness for the prosecution. Mirri throws a bowl of cherries at Zirk, setting off a massive food fight.
28	* FreeLoveFuture: And ''how!''
29	** ...although it is considered highly scandalous for Jang to have sex out of marriage; a typical chat-up line is 'Do you want to get married for a couple of hours?'.
30	** Older People, on the other hand, are not allowed to marry, so they cannot have sexual relations with Jang; this becomes a major subplot in the second book.
31	%%* FutureSlang: A scattering of words, mainly swears.
32	* MasterSwordsman: In ''Drinking Sapphire Wine'', the narrator is studying UsefulNotes/EuropeanSwordsmanship as a pastime. While perhaps not really a master as such, he knows what he's doing and is competent enough to win a duel against a much larger opponent (the aforesaid Zirk, whom he kills, setting off the rest of the plot). A popular Jang recreation center is the Adventure Palace, where you can play at this sort of "ancient grandeur" all you like.
33	* NoNameGiven: The protagonist.
34	* SuicideIsPainless: "Suiciding" is commonplace among Jang who want a new body outside of the usual time limit between changes. It's not exactly painless so much as ''consequence''-less -- the protagonist shares a fatal plane crash with a friend, and later grumbles "Why do you have to do it that way -- it ''hurts''". The friend replies "Pain is a reality."
35	%%* SufficientlyAdvancedTechnology
36	* TheLoinsSleepTonight: Danor, [[spoiler:at least when he/she tries to play along with the social norms.]]
37	%%* TitleDrop
38	* UterineReplicator: Attempting to have a kid with yourself this way is not recommended.
39	* WingedHumanoid: One of many options for the bodies people design themselves, appearing a couple times.

Context Literature / BitingTheSun